Privacy Flare-Up Prompts Facebook Meetings with Congress, Employees

Facebook is holding an all-hands town hall meeting Thursday focusing on the privacy and control maelstrom that has engulfed the company over the last two weeks following its announcements of new initiatives to spread its tendrils and user data across the web.

“We have an open culture and it should come as no surprise that we’re providing a forum for employees to ask questions on a topic that has received a lot of outside interest,” Noyes said in a written statement.

Also not surprising is that Facebook’s head of public policy Tim Sparapani (formerly an ACLU lobbyist) is briefing members of Congress Thursday morning. Not surprising since powerful lawmakers led by New York’s senior senator Chuck Schumer (D) recently called on the social networking site to stop sharing user data with companies like Yelp, Microsoft and Pandora without first getting user permission.

Perhaps as a way to highlight to legislators just how useful even they find the service, Facebook also launched a new page this morning called Congress on Facebook, which is intended to highlight how Facebook is used by lawmakers and their constituents.